


Not Like That

by liesunseen



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Clothed Sex, Illustrated, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rough Sex, You Decide, maybe there's a little bit of plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-17 23:13:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesunseen/pseuds/liesunseen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is hard when you secretly hate your dorm roommate, and it's that time of the quarter-sweep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Like That

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tavbaby (mai_hyuga)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mai_hyuga/gifts).



 

John sat hunched over his unfinished homework, pencil down, elbows on the table, head resting in his hands. His palms were sweating, body shaking. He'd long since given up trying to conceal his discomfort. 

In the gaps between his fingers, he watched as Karkat walked past, pointedly ignoring him as he made his way into the mini-kitchen of their apartment. He noticed the troll’s gait falter slightly when he got too close to John. He recovered and kept walking, hands clenched into fists at his sides. The corners of John’s lips tilted upwards, and he hid his face even further behind his palms.

Waiting until he heard the telltale click of claws on the fridge handle, John lifted his head and turned around in his chair. “Finally eating, huh? Have you been trying out one of those Hollywood fad diets?" 

He received only a low snarl and a _clang_ from inside the kitchenette in response, and John’s composure crumbled into laughter. “Uhoh, did the food lock itself inside the fridge? Guess it didn’t like being ignored!” 

Karkat, tugging uselessly on the fridge door with both hands, froze. He turned his head to fix John with a menacing glare, eyes narrowed to gleaming yellow slits through strands of sleep-mussed hair.

“Egbert, you pile of fetid, moldering oinkbeast dung, what in the chute-bleeding fuck did you do to the thermal hull?” He punctuated the word “fuck” by yanking on the door, hard enough to lift the back of the fridge off the floor about a quarter-inch. It fell with a _slam_.

“Me?” John raised a hand to his mouth in feigned shock. “I would never!”

Karkat emitted a growl loud enough to rattle the dishware. “You… you did something to the fucking fridge door, didn’t you, asshole?” Another yank, followed by an even harder _slam_. John hoped the occupants of the room downstairs were out studying at the library, or at a frat party, or something. “By the Mother Grub’s acid-spewing eggchute, tell me you didn’t weld this piece of shit hull shut? If you did, I am going to for-real murder you this time, you and your prankster’s gambit, I will wring your prankster’s gambit’s neck until it suffocates and dies with you, so help me—”

“Whoa, easy now, don’t break it! I switched the hinges to the other side! It still opens, you just have to hook your fingers under the—”

John flinched at the sound of the fridge door swinging open much harder than necessary and slamming into the countertop. Then, John ducked low to avoid a flying can of Coca-cola. It missed his head by an inch, bounced off the table, and rolled away, bubbles fizzing out of the dented cap.

“Hey! Don’t throw stuff at me, it was just a joke!”

“Oh, haha, you’re so funny John. Really fucking funny.” Karkat thrust out a hand, flipping him off from behind his back, then swung both arms around to grip his own head. John could see the wound-up tension in his hunched shoulders. He could hear air hissing through gritted teeth, like a tea kettle right before it started to boil.

“Uh… calm down? I’m sorry. I just wanted to, you know. Lighten the mood around here, a little?”

This was more or less the way things had been all semester. John, a prankster by birthright, by either wonderful or rotten luck had ended up rooming with this guy, Grumpy McGrouchpants, officially the most irritable troll on planet Alternearth. Since the day they'd moved into this dorm, the two had been at each other’s throats pretty much nonstop. 

Well, Karkat had been at John’s throat, anyway. John hovered just out of reach, a leaf dancing in the wind, taunting, teasing, trying to see how far he could push things without getting himself injured. Karkat’s infamous rants were hilarious enough to be worth the occasional bruises he’d earned himself, but...

But, right now was “that time of the quarter-sweep.” The air reeked of a bouquet of flowers on the verge of decay, the room felt about ten degrees hotter than the thermostat claimed, even though the AC was cranked, and claw-marks were beginning to materialize on every surface. In fact, there were a few diagonal gashes in the table in front of John. He glanced down at them and decided that maybe he ought not to push his luck at the moment.

So of course the next thing out of John’s mouth was, “How’re you feeling? You look like you just walked right off the set of _Night of the Living Dead_.”

Oops. That hadn’t exactly come out right. But as Karkat turned his head to glare around the fridge door, his eyes, wide and sunken from lack of sleep, caught the fridge-light and glowed like two orange holes in his head. Well. It, um. It wasn’t exactly an inaccurate description.

“Will this be the first solid food you’ve eaten since our next-door neighbor’s brains?” John shot his roommate a hesitant grin, voice high and strained. “I noticed he seemed to be missing it this morning. Or is that just all the sopor he drains from his ‘coon?”

Karkat must've found what he wanted from the fridge, because he slammed the door and stalked back towards John, carrying a plastic container and utensils, wearing an expression that made him look constipated. “You damned fucking well knowwhy I haven’t been eating or sleeping, crotchwipe.” John's body tensed as Karkat took a seat across from him, claws scraping along the back of the chair, leaving yet more scratch marks. Dammit, everything in this dorm was going to become “marked territory” at this rate. Everything. He’d even caught the troll rubbing his horns against the doorframe yesterday. 

John looked back down at the half-finished worksheets in front of him, resisting the urge to smirk, keeping his face studiously blank. This close, he could practically see the herculean restraint the troll must have been exercising not to leap across the table and tear John’s face off. He guessed he ought to respect that and leave off on provoking him for awhile.

Karkat popped the lid off the plastic container and scooped something pink and gelatinous into a cereal bowl. He frowned, nose wrinkling like even he thought troll food smelled disgusting, though in reality he probably just had no appetite right now. He scooped up a big spoonful of the lumpy, oatmeal-like substance anyway, and shoveled it into his mouth, swallowing without chewing.

John welcomed the gross alien food smell for once, as it covered the other smell that'd soaked through their entire dorm for the past few agonizing days. It wasn't a bad smell _._ That wasn't the problem. Earlier, in a pesterchum chat with his twin sister, Jade, he'd described it as: “Imagine that you’ve passed out from starvation, only to wake to the smell of somebody frying bacon. And you can’t have any.” Jade had just laughed at him and said something spooky like, “Don’t worry, I have the feeling that you’ll end up getting what you need really soon!” Stupid Jade and her stupid sisterly premonitions. He’d gone straight to the convenience store and bought a pound of bacon after hearing that. He planned on eating all of it for dinner after he finished his homework. If he ever finished his homework. If.

Of course, John’s roommate didn't literally smell like bacon. If he'd had to call it anything, the smell was sort of "plant-like," "herbal," maybe "musky"… or, okay, he should probably just cut to the chase and call it, “eau de boner.” As he breathed it in, freshly-generated, strong, and close to its source, John could feel his heart speeding up. He could feel the blood rushing through him, rushing downwards, heat pooling in his lap. John groaned internally and crossed his legs in a vain, awkward attempt to hide what was going on between them. Hah. As if Karkat didn’t already know. 

In an effort to stave off the sense of frustration that had been his constant companion for the past few days, John fumbled for his pencil and forced his attention on his neglected trig homework. What’d he been working on? Right… something to do with math, and… triangles. His brain was foggy, ugh, how was he supposed to concentrate with his stupid hormones reacting to his stupid roommate’s stupid hormones? He needed to focus. Had to get this assignment finished. He took a deep breath, and—

"This is complete bullshit. This sucks gigantic, sweaty burdenbeast shame globes. My overstressed thinkpan cannot even begin to encompass the scope of—” Karkat began grumbling a string of complaints under his breath for the thousandth time that day, this time through mouthfuls of alien oatmeal. He swallowed in-between words and shoved another heaping spoonful into his mouth, then another, and another, in quick succession, which lent his muttering a strange rhythm.

Unable to concentrate, John looked up at Karkat and raised one eyebrow.

Pausing amidst bites of oatmeal, Karkat snuck a glance back at John. The troll’s forehead creased, and he glowered back down into his food. “Oh, what, am I bothering you? Is my regulatory-fluid-imbalance-based torment distracting you from your studies? How about I go sit in the corner and eat, whilst endeavoring to be as non-distracting as possible? Better yet, I could go lock myself in the hygieneblock with the fan on full blast until this nightmare of a week is finally over. Or how about this, I’ll just find the nearest vaguely sharp instrument and use it to saw my bulge off, Mother Grub knows it would be an improvement over this, this horrible, ridiculous…” Beginning to stumble over his own words, Karkat slammed an elbow down on the table and facepalmed spectacularly. “Arrrgh I can’t even come up with any good insults, this _sucks_ , what the _fuck_?” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs exactly as John had done earlier. He started doing the thing where it looked like he was trying to smooth out the wrinkles in his pants, under the table. Realizing what he was doing, he quickly snatched his hand away and placed it on the table, fingers curled in a tight fist. John swallowed hard. 

— _don’t say a word, don’t tease him about it, he’ll snap—_

John knew all about what this time of the quarter-sweep did to trolls, he'd been reading Wikipedia articles and whatever else he could get his hands on about it for days, shit, shit, he needed to not think about all of the facts he'd read right now. Or the anatomical drawings. Or the photos. Shit.

"It's okay! You're not bothering me. Heh, pretty sure I have to actually be attracted to you in order for it to bother me.” John sat up straight and forced a sarcastic smile as he spoke, all the while wondering whether he ought to wipe away the beads of sweat trickling from his brow, or if doing so would just draw more attention to his body's natural response to the scent of alien hormones. 

Unfortunately, what he’d said was an outright lie. He was attracted to his roommate. True, it was sort of impossible to not be attracted to him right now, but no, he’d been… noticing… him for some time, before all this alien puberty nonsense had even begun. Noticing how since they’d been in high school, Karkat had not gotten taller, but was finally starting to fill out that skinny frame he’d always inhabited. Noticing the growth of muscle, cheekbones beginning to show in his baby-round face. Noticing how full his lips looked, how sexy they were with that hawkeyed glare and those sharply-angled brows. Since he’d grown into his pointy front teeth, his exaggerated sneer had gone from goofy-looking to something approximating “sexy” almost overnight.

He had a nice ass, too. Like. When he bet over to tie his shoes, it just look really tight and—

Karkat stopped eating and dropped his spoon into the bowl, angrily swiping his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes firmly locked on the tabletop. 

“I. Look. I know it is actually… bothering you.” Karkat lifted a hand and began scratching lines into his own arm, then stopped once he became aware of what he was doing and dropped his arm back down at his side. “I went to the health center in between classes yesterday, to see if I could get on suppressants. But, uh. Apparently there’d be some side effects. And. Um.”

John blinked. Was Karkat actually being apologetic right now? No, this was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. John knew his roommate pretty well by now. If he let him continue down this path, it’d lead to repetitive self-recrimination cycles, and that could not be allowed to happen.

John slammed his notebook shut and covered his mouth, yawning wide. “Boooring. Let’s talk about something else?” He flashed a grin, head tilting to the side. “Nobody wants to hear about your puberty angst, dude. Okay? Nobody.”

Karkat’s ears went flat back against his head in an instant, gray-black lips drawing back to reveal his murderous piranha teeth. John’s heart palpitated, a little.

“Is that so? Funny, you seem really _interested_.”

He was doing that thing where he put extra emphasis on the “r’s,” making his speech growly and threatening. John found himself leaning forward in his seat, heart racing. “Right, okay. Sure. How do you figure that?”

Karkat was leaning forward too, claws outstretched, digging themselves slowly into the wood of the table. His eyes stared into John’s, manic and unblinking, nostrils flaring with each fast and shallow breath. “Human nasal protuberances may be too fucking pathetic to pick up pheromones, but me? I can _smell_ how interested you are, John. And don’t even you dare trying to deny it, you nookwhiffing spawn of a would-be-cull.”

Oh, that was _it_. John couldn't take it anymore. “Pfft, yeah?” He stood, and swiped Karkat’s bowl out of the way to get right up in his face. Unfortunately, he swung his arm a little harder than necessary, knocking the bowl onto the floor and splattering pink oatmeal everywhere.

“The hell did you do that….?!” Karkat stared him down, pupils almost obscuring his recently-developed red irises, two hard cinnamon candies. “Uh. John…?” 

John's ear were ringing as he slammed both hands down, leaned forward over the table, and pressed his lips hard against those of the startled face across from him.

Karkat shoved him, reflexive. Knocking John a couple of steps backwards, he kicked his legs out, pushed his chair back away from the table, and scrambled to his feet, mouth hanging open, panting for breath.

"John? What? What the fuck?"

"I…" 

John had no idea. None. All thoughts had fled his brain. His mouth opened, but he couldn't get any more than that single “I” to come out. 

He didn't need any more words. Karkat strode to John's side of the table. He grabbed the collar of the boy's shirt, pulled his head down and crushed their lips together, staring at John, eyes burning like coals. John pushed out his tongue, brushed it against Karkat’s lower lip hesitantly, only to have Karkat grab it with his teeth and pull. The troll’s eyes squeezed shut, and he snarled in the back of his throat. John felt the heat of his breath again his face. Then the beartrap teeth released, Karkat pushed his head forward, engulfing John’s lips, and now they were making out semi-normally.

Karkat’s mouth was peppery and hot like cinnamon candy, too. There was the leftover taste of troll cereal, which would've been gross if not for the powerful dose of hormones transferring through the saliva. The ringing in John's ears evolved into a mighty roar. “More,” John’s body demanded.

Karkat broke the kiss, looking dazed. John grabbed the set of narrow shoulders and pulled the troll back in close. He tried to, anyway, but Karkat grabbed his forearms and resisted. John pushed back, using all of his weight. He should have knocked the smaller figure to the floor, but Karkat was a lot stronger than he looked, and he stood his ground. Grunting in frustration, John leaned in to kiss him again, shoving his tongue in, pushing fearlessly past the mean little serrated teeth. Karkat pulled his own tongue back so the tips just barely touched, a little electric tingle, ugh, it wasn't enough, _more_. Karkat let out a full-bodied growl, and John growled back, voice shrill and human but it was a growl all the same. Karkat grabbed John's shirt with his other hand and yanked, his jaw pushed hard against John’s mouth, their heads twisted to the side—

Then he was pushing John away again, eyes wide and bulging out in shock. “ _Bloodstained shackles of the Signless_ , the fuck are we…? No, no, no." Whirling away, Karkat wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, arm shaking. "Grubfucking hell, I'm sorry, I am so fucking—"

“What? Uh… No! No, don’t be sorry!” John reached out a hand towards the troll, but stopped mid-motion, wavering. There was a magnetic force pulling him towards Karkat, he wanted so badly to touch him, pull him close, kiss him, but he resisted. “I mean, it’s. It’s. Okay?”

“No! It is nowhere close to okay! I… I knew I should've requested a new room. This is my first time, I didn't know… I mean, I knew this kind of thing happened, but I never thought it was going to effect you like—”

John's hands balled into fists at his sides and he loudly cut him off. "I've been wanting to do this for awhile, actually!” He’d intend it to come out clear and confident, but his voice cracked. Silence followed. John swallowed a lump in his throat and gathered his courage once more. “Shit I was going to tell you before, but then this happened and um." John tried to meet Karkat’s gaze straight-on, trying to channel his sincerity, but his vision was blurring, brain a mush of pulse and haze, body a throbbing mess of heat and lust. A force had taken hold of him around the middle, he could feel it tugging, trying to force him closer. “I… I like you. As in, I hate you, as a troll would say, you know? Except… dammit, I'm not making any sense am I?"

Karkat goggled at him, eyes as big as saucers. "Wait you… what?" His mouth opened, closed, facial expressions cycling through shock, anger, and wonder. "But you said…"

"I know!" John facepalmed mightily, laughing, tense. "I was wrong, way wrong. I've never felt this way about anybody before, and I didn't know I even could. But I do! It even feels weird to say I hate you, but—"

"Fuck." Karkat grabbed his chair and sat down heavily, now he was the one hiding his face in his hands. John could see a jagged smile through the gaps of his fingers, though. "Well fuck! How long? It didn't just happen this week, I hope?"

"No way." John shook his head hard. "No, it's not just since you've been in heat—"

"For the love of the Mother Grub, do not say that shit out loud."

"Sorry! But, I felt this way for awhile. I didn't know how I was going to tell you. I figured you'd be angry with me after I went on and on with all that ‘humans don’t do kismesissitude’ stuff. But, haha, I guess my hormones went and did the talking for me anyway."

John couldn’t resist the magnetic tug any longer. However, fighting his baser urges, he walked over next to Karkat as he spoke and placed a hand on the troll's shoulder, tentative. Karkat’s head shot up, messy locks bouncing and his eyes so, so wide. 

“Are you sure you really…” he said in a choked voice, trailing off as he looked at the hand on his shoulder in awe, then looking back up at John's face. John could feel the shiver run through him. Karkat’s eye slowly closed, he tilted his head back, lips opening slightly, receptive. John felt the magnetic force pulling him down, down. They kissed.

Their lips pressed together, closed-mouth, nose-breathing fogging John’s glasses. John tried to get closer, but Karkat put a hand on his chest and held him back. Making a confused sound, John pushed, but Karkat’s body tensed and he pushed back, shoving John away. The kiss broke.

“What’s…?”

“Are you sure you want me black? Are you fucking positive?”

Karkat drew back, looking John straight in the face like he was trying to burn a hole through him. His claws gripped the seat of his chair, digging in holes. “B-because in your human books and movies, you have relationships that start out black, but. Like. Humans pay lip service to the _idea_ of kismessisitude but it seems like what you _really_ want is always the red or pale quadrant—”

“No! It’s not like that,” John found himself saying. “I… I don’t want it to be like that.”

“Then what?” Karkat’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want it to be like?” 

When John didn’t answer right away, he reached out and swatted the glasses off John’s face. John’s hands flew to his face in panic, then he laughed once he’d confirmed his eyeballs were still intact. “The hell did you do that for?” He heard but didn’t see his glasses clatter to the kitchen floor.

“Wanted to see your godawful excuse for a face.” The troll displayed a flash of teeth, gleaming and slightly pink with saliva. A line dripped down his chin. John noticed him breathing heavily. 

“You got rabies or something?” John tapped his own chin, smirking. “You’ve got a little something, right here…”

Karkat slammed a palm on the table and leaned forward. Then he slunk backwards, ears pointed down, pupils tiny little startled dots beneath lowered brows. Crouching low, he paced around the table. His movements, slow and fluid, contained this underlying threat of coiled power. Step by step John matched his pace. Circling. He wasn’t entirely sure who was chasing who. Adrenaline-laced blood pounded in John’s ears. He imagined the troll pouncing, leaping over the table and tackling him, and something in his belly dropped like he was on an amusement park ride.

“Say it.” Karkat’s voice dropped into a low snarl. John heard that deep, animal sound in the back of his throat again, and it made his face heat up. His arousal, which hadn’t flagged lower than half-mast for _days_ , swelled, throbbing against the fly of his pants.

“Say what?”

“How the fuck do you want it?!”

Oh, that. 

John didn’t say anything. Reaching out, he grabbed the arm Karkat was using to brace himself and yanked hard, knocking him down onto the table. Karkat let out a yelp and tried to wriggle free, but John grabbed a handful of his messy hair and slammed his head into the wood with a _bang_. Karkat curled his lower body and kicked, catching only air as John dodged. Lashing out with his arms, Karkat swept John’s notebook, worksheets, cup, and pens onto the floor. 

Hooked claws caught John in the face, just grazing him. John wondered whether even the troll’s claws were laced with hormones, because the scratch marks burned in a very good way, a fiery-icy sort of sting. John grinned wide, wounds getting even tinglier as the skin stretched. Holding Karkat helpless by the hair, he kissed him again, and this time he bared his teeth to bite down on the troll’s lower lip as hard as he could.

With a _pop,_ John tasted blood. He drew back, smacking his lips. The taste of rusty nails and concupiscent hormones filled his mouth. Everything was hormones right now, everything. John swore he could feel the zipper straining on his jeans, and he wondered that he hadn’t burst out of them yet. 

He was out of breath, too, when he spoke. “I want it like that.”

Karkat’s eyes had gone hazy, mouth agape and blood-streaked, but after hearing that he snapped his jaw shut and his eyes cleared. Pushing himself up, Karkat bit back, growling, red-tinted saliva smearing across John’s cheek as he squirmed and fought. Strong and singled-minded, Karkat forced his torso up off the table, but not away, he was clawing his way towards John, claws digging trenches in the tabletop. In the back of his mind, a little voice reminded John that they’d have to pay for all this damage they were doing to the room. He told it to shut the heck up.

John grabbed hold of Karkat’s horns and pushed his head back against the table. He leaned down to kiss his neck. Instead, his lips met Karkat’s teeth. John gnashed his own teeth against the troll’s, they snarled, biting each other’s mouths, wrestling, squirming, and kicking until they found themselves tumbling to the floor. 

The fake, wood-printed linoleum, usually warm and sort of unpleasant to the touch, felt unusually cool beneath John’s outstretched palms. Karkat, laying beneath him, pinned by John’s weight was generating heat like a stove. John was burning up as well. His face felt like it was on fire. He was surprised there wasn’t stream pouring out of his ears.

With a sudden burst of strength, Karkat threw John off. Scuttling backwards, he fixed John with a wide-eyed, unblinking stare. Hunched over, he swayed, eyes unfocused, pupils huge. He looked intoxicated. The two stared each other down, breathing heavily.  

“Oh my God.” Karkat’s speech was slurred. “I can barely see straight.” His voice was trembling, too. He was trembling all over. 

John smirked. “I can’t see at all, but that’s because you smacked my glasses off. Jerk.” 

Karkat showed his teeth. “Wanted to rip off your ugly face, but I missed due to my aforementioned fucked-up ganderbulbs.”

“Aww, are you blushing?” Karkat flinched and quickly looked down at the floor, but not before John was able to confirm what he’d seen. A tint of cherry-red colored the troll’s face, his fingertips, the sliver of belly showing where his shirt was bunched up. Karkat must’ve been flushed cherry-red from his toes to the tips of his horns. John angled himself closer. “I want to rip that stupid sweater off you, see that color all over your body.”

Karkat shuddered, and John saw his chest heave as he drew in a deep breath. “I’d like to see you try.” 

At that, they lunged at one another, clasped hands, and proceeded to wrestle. For a minute John felt sure Karkat was going to cheat and use his superior strength to shove him to the ground, but he gave in instead, allowing his body to tip over and fall backwards. 

On the way, Karkat wrapped his arms around John’s head and pulled the boy down on top of him. Pulled John’s mouth against his, pushed his tongue in, past John’s lips. Curled it in the back of his mouth. John lay heavily on top, smothering Karkat with his larger body size and face as he drew Karkat’s tongue deep into his mouth and sucked hard. Still holding both of Karkat’s hands, he slid them up over Karkat’s head and held him down by his wrists. He slid his waist lower, until their hips pressed together. John could feel Karkat’s bulge through his pants, unsheathed and squirming eagerly against the swelling in his own jeans. He rolled his hips in unconscious response, and watched the troll’s eyes glaze over.

Karkat arched his back. “Ah…”

“What’s that? You say you like being pinned down?” John smiled and rolled his hips again, harder, squeezing the troll’s wrists, hoping to leave bruises. “Got you right where I want you now.” Karkat squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered. John pushed his face close, licked his earlobe. He whispered right into it, “All mine.”

That broke the spell. Karkat’s eyes cleared and he glared again. 

“Yours? No, I don’t think so. You're mine.” Karkat pushed his face up and began kissing John’s neck. John went limp at the feeling of warm, wet lips, the soft caress of tongue, against—

Teeth sank into his throat. His body jerked, and Karkat bit down hard, then released with a loud sloppy sucking noise. John gaped; Karkat licked his lips and grinned, the bastard. The ring of toothmarks stung for a second, and then begin to tingle, like the scratches on his cheek, warm and strange. John reached up, letting go of one wrist to feel his neck.

“Ow, you little shit,” he said as his palm came away bloody.

“Heh. That’s going to leave a nice mark.”

“Did you seriously just _mark_ me? What am I, your territory?”

“Exactly. Now everyone will know you're mine.” Karkat took John’s hand and kissed the back of it. Licked the blood off John’s palm. Bit sharply into his wrist.

“Ah!” John tried to pull his arm away, but Karkat wouldn't let him have it back. He nibbled at the tips of his fingers. John shivered as he felt his tongue wrap around one finger, then the prickle more teeth. Even though John had prepared himself this time, he wasn't ready for the electric tingle that ran all the way down his spine and straight to his dick. Groaning, he thrusted his hips, involuntary. John realized what Karkat must be doing: transferring high doses of hormones into John’s bloodstream through his saliva. His vision was going seriously wonky, and it had nothing to do with his missing glasses. Through a red-tinted haze, John watched Karkat lay a string of kisses up his forearm, heading back up towards his neck. The coiling, snakelike movements of Karkat’s bulge had grown strong, rhythmic, and John found himself rocking his hips to the tempo. It almost exactly matched his heartbeat, thudding steadily in his ears.

When Karkat’s heated lips met his neck again, John managed to get one leg between Karkat’s. Smiling, he pressed his knee into Karkat’s nook. Karkat released Johns neck with a sharp gasp, letting his head fall back to the floor. His whole body shuddered, brow creasing, lips drawing back to show off every pointy shark-tooth. John felt a warm, damp spot between Karkat's legs. He pushed his knee harder into that crease, and was rewarded as Karkat moaned and shuddered harder, thighs squeezing tight around his leg, hips bucking, eager.

“John, you awful, wonderful piece of shit, you stupid fucking, son of a, shitfuck oh my God yes, no don’t stop, yes, yes oh fuck—”

The breathless, urgent tone of Karkat’s voice made John’s vision narrow down to one glowing hot pinprick of _want it need it got to get it, waited so long to get this out of my system, need it now, now, now—_

John collapsed on top of Karkat, their fingers intertwined above Karkat’s head, legs tangled together. John thrust his hips in a hard and fast rhythm, pounding the smaller body beneath him into the linoleum. Head thrown all the way back, neck fully exposed, Karkat’s nubby little horns struck the hard plastic again and again, a steady _click, click, click_ as he continued to rattle off strings of obscenities, broken by desperate pleas. John bit his exposed neck, his teeth weren’t sharp enough to draw blood, but Karkat cried out anyway.

“Yes, yes, oh...”

Liquid fire flowed through John’s veins. They were already soaked in each other’s sweat, breathing steam, and he grew hotter, hotter, heat pooling in his belly, and—

“Holy shit… gonna come…”

No sooner did the words leave John’s mouth than he felt the telltale full-body shakes come on. He pried his fingers from Karkat’s and clutched at the troll’s sides, pulling him as close to himself as he could, muscle control gone as he peaked hard. The roaring in his ears transformed into a nuclear explosion. He might have screamed Karkat’s name, or it might have just been incoherent noise, he had no idea.

When he was able to open his eyes again, Karkat was watching, rapt, jaw slack, eyes a yellow-and-red haze of lust. He looked like he was right on the edge.

Still coming down from his crescendo, John started rolling his hips against Karkat’s again, hard and steady. He hissed through his teeth, “Yes, you too, c’mon,” and Karkat grabbed his shoulders and dug his claws in deep, body going into convulsions the way John’s just had. John had gauged right, that was all it had taken to tip Karkat over. 

The troll’s eyes squeezed shut, mouth open, teeth bared in a noiseless scream. After all that noise he’d been making, Karkat was silent during orgasm. Go figure. John felt Karkat’s thighs clamp like a vice around his knee, and his small frame spasmed as hot, sticky liquid soaked the fronts of both of their pants, trailing down Karkat’s sides, forming a reddish pool on the floor under them. John rode out every last shake and twitch. He experienced some nice aftershocks himself from stimulation of his still-hard dick. Troll orgasms lasted longer than humans’, almost a full minute longer. John wasn’t sure whether to be jealous of that, or relieved to be spared the intensity.

Finally, Karkat was spent. Bodies relaxing, they rested against each other, arms and legs going limp, neither wanting to be the first to move or speak. John’s body was lifted slightly up and down by Karkat’s breaths. His breathing was beginning to slow down. 

Karkat was the first to break the silence. “I needed that. I really fucking needed that.”

“Yeah.” John folded his arms over Karkat’s chest and sat his chin on top of them, smiling down at the troll, giddy. “Me too.”

Karkat’s head turned to the side. John could barely hear him mumbling.

“What was that?”

“...Hate you.”

“Oh? Well, I hate you more!”

“Do not.”

“Do too.”

“Argh, get off, your fat ass is going to smother me to death.” Karkat grabbed John by the shoulders and shoved uselessly. “No seriously, I can’t breathe, get off. Is this how you want me to die, laying here marinating in my own juices?”

Groaning in exaggerated annoyance, John stood up. He grabbed the tabletop for support, knees still wobbly. He watched Karkat sit up slowly, swaying like a drunk, and laughed. “There are probably much worse ways to die.”

Ignoring him, Karkat bent his knees, legs spread, wrinkling his nose as he took in the scale of the mess beneath him. “Grubfucking hell. Next time we’re using a pail.”

John’s heart leapt a little at, “next time.”

“Next time, let’s actually take our clothes off,” he replied. Karkat’s face turned as red as his irises.

“Yeah that’s… probably a good idea.”

“Gonna sit there all day or help me clean up? There’s pink stuff all over the floor, do you want that to stain?” John gestured to the long-forgotten bowl of oatmeal, then back to the puddle under Karkat. He growled.

“For the love of shit, give me a minute. I just came half my fucking body weight, you could try giving me one damn minute to recover.”

“You get thirty seconds.”

“Forty.”

“Deal.”

“But only if you cook me some of that bacon you’ve got in the fridge.”

“Wha… that’s mine! I was saving that!”

“I’m going to need real food if we’re going to do that again later.”

John turned, eyebrows shooting up to the ceiling, but Karkat was carefully looking away. “Again?”

“I should be good to go again in about an hour.” Karkat slowly turned his head to face John again, though he seemed to be having a hard time meeting his gaze. “How about you?”

“I. I should be good by then, too. Um. Yeah.” John grinned. “Yeah, hey. Bacon sounds pretty good right now.” 

Picking his glasses up off the floor and resettling them on his face, John stepped over the mess and headed for the kitchenette, playfully shoving Karkat as he walked by. Still woozy, the troll snarled as he nearly toppled over. John stuck out his tongue at him. Karkat scowled and gave him the finger.

When he reached the refrigerator, John pulled on the door handle and… nothing happened. It wouldn’t open. Huh? He frowned.

“John, you switched the hinges, you colossal douche.” Karkat’s voice floated over the countertop, dripping with disdain. “Remember?”

“Ohh. Right.” John smacked himself in the forehead and hooked his fingers under the door. He traced a few claw-marks leftover from Karkat’s tantrum earlier, as he swung the door open and retrieved the bacon.

“You are the worst fucking prankster.”

“Aww, I hate you too!” John replied in a singsong. Karkat made a flustered, unintelligible noise in response, and John ducked under the countertop to fetch the frying pan, giggling to himself.

He couldn’t wait for it to be one hour from now.

**Author's Note:**

> MAIHYUGA SORRY THIS TOOK A MILLION YEARS TO FINISH  
> I hope you like it though  
> I'll write an actual postscript later right now I'm a zillion percent tired oy vey  
> (Laters...)  
> Swapped out the middle drawing, because I forgot John should've still had his glasses on for that scene. I'll keep a link to the original, glasses-less version on my tumblr (same as my penname). Drawing them was kind of a relief, I prefer John's face with glasses.  
> About the fic... awhile ago people were chatting about how much they like "in heat" Johnkat fics, and I thought, "wow, me too." I started jotting down some headcanons, and that evolved into this.  
> Main headcanons I played with here:  
> \- happens twice a year (4x/sweep) after puberty. trolls generally live longer than humans, so sexual maturity develops later, between ages 16-18 (8 and 9). (Karkat is a late bloomer.)  
> \- heat lasts about a week. during this time, trolls don't eat or sleep very much, and their behavior becomes very aggressive/territorial.  
> \- trolls feel compelled to mark their territory with claw scratches, sometimes grinding their horns against objects to make big, obvious marks. they get very oversensitive to anyone touching or otherwise fucking around with objects in "their" space (the fridge thing was not the smartest idea for a prank, John).  
> Speaking of the fridge prank... a lot of refrigerators have holes that you can use to switch the hinges and door handle, to change whether the door swings open from the right or left. If you switch the hinges to the other side but leave the handle where it is, it'll seem like the fridge door is stuck. Apparently this is a fun prank to play in offices, if you're that evil. I haven't tried it, I found it by googling "kitchen pranks" because I was tired of people having John do the same card tricks and bucket-over-the-doorway pranks over and over.


End file.
